All right, I guess I have a LOT of explaining to do...first of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! YAY 2008!!! Secondly...yeah, I haven't updated since August. So here's what happened: SCHOOL AND NANOWRIMO. I actually did a LOT of work on this during November for NANOWRIMO (Nation Novel Writing Month, if you don't know what it is, google it) but it was character development work. I wrote the background story (still in progress) of one of the HUGE characters in this story. I had to get to know that character's history for something huge coming up in this one. Anyway, I'm as of yet undecided about posting my NANO story, but I knew I had to get back to this one. So here is a BRAND NEW CHAPTER!!! Oh, and a little warning...there is actually a TINY bit of nudity in it, more hinted than anything. I promise that it's for a good reason though, and it's not for romantic purposes. I swear! Please still read it, and if I've gone too far let me know in a review (no flames please). Just so that everybody knows, I could NEVER abandon this story. I love writing about that wonderful boy who never grows up too much. So, if months do pass between updates, it doesn't mean that I've stopped writing, EVER. Just slow updating...eheh. Thank you so much to all of my lovely readers, you guys keep me writing. :D And I will try to update more often now that I know that certain character better...
Disclaimer: Yeah, I just own Rebecca and all other OC's...not Tinker Bell or Peter Pan or any other familiar characters.
Chapter Fifteen: Hanging By A Limb
As I tramped my way through the brush in what I hoped was the direction of the hideout, I wondered how one makes a dagger. I mean, the question of a blacksmith went through my mind, but who was I kidding? A blacksmith in Neverland? Ha!
"Guess I'll have to somehow sharpen a stone into a dagger," I said to myself. I was glancing all around me, wondering why I had chosen the direction I did…was it at all accurate to the hideout? That's when it happened. My feet were sort of circling as I looked around in all directions, trying to find the right one, when I stepped on something soft. In a matter of seconds, a vine closed around my right ankle and I was swept into the air, hanging upside down by my leg as my mouth omitted a scream. I bounced up and down for a few seconds, flailing my limbs wildly and trying to get my bearings while hyperventilating and shouting, "Whoa! Whoa!" The leafy ground came toward my face and moved away several times while the jungle spun about my head and bounced up and down, greatly dizzying me. Remembering times on rapidly spinning tire swings, I squeezed my eyes shut in hopes of helping the sickening sensation. Shut eyes didn't help at all.
My right leg, the victim limb, was feeling very strange, almost as if detached, and aching from my hip joint…I panicked as I realized it might have been disconnected from the socket, and I looked up at my ankle, the tight vine scooping up the skin around my heel and turning it bright red with the pressure. My left leg was swinging around haphazardly, probably not helping very much in stopping or at least slowing the spinning. "Er…errr…" I groaned as I tried my best to crunch my stomach enough so that I could reach my ankle with my hands and hopefully set my foot free. It was no use, as it pained my leg to strain against it and I couldn't get very far anyway. I gently let my upper torso hang down again, suddenly tucking my still damp t-shirt into my pajama pants to avoid certain exposure. Then I tried to bend my right knee and bring my body up with it…and there was no hope there either. I might have been able to lift myself that way if both of my ankles had been entangled, providing more strength, but as it was just the one, I began to flail my limbs again in a panic. How long was I going to hang there until someone found me? "HELP!" I screamed. "PETER! HELP ME! HELP!" My voice went shrill as I felt the blood increase in my face thanks to gravity. I had always hated that feeling and I was helpless at the moment to alleviate it. I was taking a breath to scream for help again when I got another idea.
The spinning of the vine was settling down some more now and I looked around through a face pressured with excess blood, trying to focus on the surrounding resources I could possibly use. This was going to be tricky, but I had to try...
"All right, this vine must be attached to a tree limb somewhere…" I reasoned to myself. Sure enough, there was a fairly thick tree to my right. Actually, there were many trees right close by. I mean, it was a jungle! I wanted to smack my forehead for not thinking of this before, and used my still quite existent panic as a scapegoat for stupidity. There was a tree to my left side that was actually closer to me than the tree on my right from which I hung, and I began to try to build up a little momentum in attempts to swing to the tree on the left. I sort of twitched my upper torso back and forth and was relieved to find that I could get something of a slight swing started, which encouraged me to try harder. I gained closer and closer air to the tree and began to reach out for it, groaning all the while as further dizziness from the sinking blood in my head affected my perception of my surroundings. I knew I had to get down fast or I would be likely to pass out quite soon. "Just a little further," I groaned to myself, stretching my widened fingers from my hands and arms as far as they could travel. Thankfully, my fingertips managed to scrape against the bark and I was all the more determined to reach the tree.
I swung even harder, trying to calm the fear of smashing my face into the bark of the tree, which was pretty inevitable. "How many wounds am I going to get in just one day here?" I wondered aloud in another groan, somehow knowing that this was only the beginning of cuts and bruises and bloodiness to be encountered. And then my hands finally gripped the thick ridged bark, snapping back off, and then grabbing it again on the following swing. That time, my arms were part way around the tree's body, so with much effort I was able to cling to it. "Now what?" I asked myself as my arms started to ache almost immediately. I tried to wrap them about the tree a bit more and, again calling on my climbing strategies (they were really coming in handy!) I held my face…well, more like banged it against the tree, wincing and not at all enjoying the feeling of falling bits of dust from the bark mixing with the blood on my neck. As I did this, I pushed out my left leg, swinging it a little to try to find the tree with it, using my right ankle within the vine as a balance.
My left foot struck the tree. I almost breathed some relief as I worked it around the trunk and tried to stabilize it against the bark. Then I took a breath, gathering the strength within my limbs, and worked my left leg with my arms to push myself up the tree. I was desperately hoping to find a branch; I couldn't really look for one or I would surely get bark in my eyes. I had to feel for one. My plan was to hang from or even sit on a limb and then untangle my ankle. I would worry about getting down from the tree later. Yet another problem presented itself as I squeezed against the tree and tried my hardest to push upwards. My shirt was gradually being pushed out of my pajama pants as my body moved upward, and while I sensed it with great discomfort, I knew that there was nothing I could do to fix it unless I wanted to greatly risk swinging dangerously down from the tree and into mid-air again. I was grateful enough as it was that my right leg seemed to still be within its socket and I did not want that to change. So as I gradually slid up, my t-shirt slowly slid down my stomach. The only real thing I could do was try to squeeze my torso against the tree to help prevent my shirt from sliding, but it was a lose-lose situation as that caused the shirt to slide more. Yet if I had given it any lee-way, it would have fallen right down…not good!
Oh, but then something good did happen as my strength was rapidly being drained from my body and my teeth clenched harder…a wonderful lovely welcomed tree branch. I was so happy that I actually half cried-out and half groaned-out a "YES!" as I hooked my left foot over it. With that help, I was able to pull up with my left leg, bracing my hands carefully against the trunk of the tree, and eventually grip the branch with my left hand. I then pulled up, holding my breath against the strain of my muscles, and pushed my left leg over the branch. Now I was somewhat straddled on it, with my upper torso hanging down and off the side of it. I was still too scared to move my right hand from the trunk lest I should fall, so I concentrated on steadying myself and slowly making my way into a sitting position.
My shirt also made its little way left down to my shoulder blades and there was still nothing that I could do about it without taking a great and dangerous risk of completely falling. I tried to ignore the ever-growing exposure as I worked on getting myself onto that branch. It was thin but stable enough to support me, for which I was quite thankful. "Okay," I said to myself as my body scooted itself more so upon the branch. "Okay…" I worked my right hand up the trunk of the tree, and was actually getting pretty close to taking the limb in both hands and fixing my shirt…which had slid down even more.
It was just then that I heard a rustling in some nearby bushes beneath me and I completely panicked again. I somehow doubted that it was an animal, and as I searched frantically for the source, I found that I was perfectly right. For there to my left, crouched within some very thick foliage, emerged a face covered with grime and dirt and an evil grimace. The face rose just a few more inches, and I found broadened and strong shoulders beneath a tattered shirt and leathery rags…a man. And he was looking directly at me. I met his eyes, finding them hard, dark brown, staring and…wandering down from my face…I looked down and found a feminine area to be peeking out of the bottom of my t-shirt.
I gasped, trying to move my left elbow to cover myself, with little success. I looked at the man again, and he was still staring at that region, only now a certain grin was spreading across his face. A grin that I did not like in the least. A grin with rotting, almost non-existent teeth and…desire. I began to hyperventilate again, panicked pain firing through the pit of my stomach as the man came to his full height and stepped in my direction. That's also when I noticed the cutlass about his waist. I continued to observe his appearance, but I needn't have looked twice to know one thing. He was a pirate.
Like cliff hangers? Yeah, it's unfair for me to leave you there for too long, so I won't ;) But please (NO FLAMES) REVIEW!!!!